“He impressed us,” says CBS Entertainment President Nancy Tellem, who helped Survivor creator Mark Burnett pick the 16 castaways for Survivor: The Australian Outback.

        “I thought he was an interesting character,” says Mr. Burnett in an interview during the Television Critics Association winter press tour here.

        So the 53-year-old Grant County High School industrial arts teacher and farmer will be competing for $1 million in the highly anticipated Survivor sequel premiering after CBS' Super Bowl XXXV telecast on Jan. 28 (about 10:30 p.m., Channels 12, 7).

        The 14-week series will air through April 26, while Mr. Burnett plans Survivor 3 for CBS, to be shot in either Africa or Peru.

        Mr. Burnett, Ms. Tellem and her boss, CBS Television President Les Moonves, interviewed Mr. Bingham in Los Angeles in September along with about 50 other finalists. They soon made the former Kentucky banker and lumber company owner the oldest Australian Survivor.

        “He just seemed to be a very centered kind of man, and he really had an interest in adventure,” Ms. Tellem says.

        “In any of these decisions, you look at the person as a whole and their background,” she says. “It's a question of having the right personality and background combination.”

        Mr. Bingham, who has been banned from speaking about Survivor by CBS, took a two-month leave of absence in October to tape the 42-day CBS show. His fellow castaways included an Army intelligence officer, a Harvard Law School student, a personal trainer, a nurse, a retired cop and a corrections officer.

        A pool of 49,000 applicants — eight times more than the first show — provided a younger cast. The first Survivor, which drew record ratings last summer, included people in their 60s and 70s.

        The new show will have people in their “20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, which I think is more representative of the country,” Mr. Burnett says. Mr. Bingham is 19 years younger than Rudy Boesch, one of four Survivor finalists on Aug. 23.

        “I think we have . . . maybe a little bit more sex appeal, but it's a great group, just like the first one was,” Mr. Moonves says. “The first group was full of surprises, and we think the second group is as well.”

        Like last summer, the 16 were divided into two camps that competed in rigorous games. At the end of each program, the campers met above a thundering waterfall at sunset and voted to send one person home. (Host Jeff Probst will use the phrase “voted out of the tribe,” instead of “voted off the island” on the show.)

        All 16 came physically and mentally prepared for the games and to forge political alliances with other castaways. All had watched Survivor last year, which was won by Richard Hatch of Rhode Island.

        “Richard Hatch would have been eaten alive with this group,” Mr. Probst told TV critics. “Everybody sort of came into it like a head football coach. They had strategies for every single formation.”

        Surviving the “extremely dangerous” Australian Outback was far more demanding than living on a South China Sea island, last year's show location, Mr. Burnett says.

        Survivor 2 participants lived among crocodiles, poisonous snakes and deadly spiders. It could be cold and rainy one day, and a sweltering 115 degrees the next.

        “The level of suffering in this (show) ... would make you want to cry. It's real suffering,” Mr. Burnett says.

        Yet the 16 participants didn't complain. They wanted a very challenging experience, he says.

        “The sole criticism that I get from the 16 (is that) . . . they wouldn't give up two months of their lives, and put their families on hold, and mess up careers, if it wasn't going to be real,” he says.

        Though many of the Australian Survivor participants talked about Richard, Rudy and others from the first TV series, viewers won't hear any reference to the original show. Why did Mr. Burnett edit out every mention?

        “Because it's gone. It's ended,” he says. “I don't want to hear about what was. I care about today and tomorrow . . . I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but it's my show and I really don't want to talk about stuff like that.”

        As they say on Survivor: The tribe has spoken.
       Enquirer TV Critic John Kiesewetter is reporting from the Television Critics Association's winter press tour.

Silence is required for 'Survivor'
       

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